


Moonsail

by heartshapeddog



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Pining, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 20:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18350705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartshapeddog/pseuds/heartshapeddog
Summary: "The HMS Breadalbane’s demise is forthcoming, a pluck reverberating back to Francis now along the string of time, a thrumming death-knoll in her warm wooden bones. When he isn’t watching the splintering deck below his feet, he is dreaming, or perhaps hallucinating."OrSemi book-verse FRMC has even more psychic powers and astral projects to spy on his crush.





	Moonsail

The  _ Breadalbane’s _ upper deck is nostalgic in its warmth - practically searing after what they’ve endured. Francis ought to enjoy it; the fresh provisions, the berth, the  _ heat _ . To say nothing of the promise of life he’s managed to fulfill for his men, or those remaining among them.

 

In the corner, the planks have begun to splinter. Layer upon layer of fine English timber, bowing and screaming and giving up with a wet crack. 

 

“Are you well, Captain?” 

 

“You know very well my medical status, Lieutenant,” he replies, not looking away from the shock of ice beyond the ragged gaps. Jopson smiles, nervous, a little forlorn, and wrings his hands. He cannot see it. Francis knows he cannot. He can only see the wan picture of his Captain before him, over-thin and wind-burned yet. If he looks any less well than Jopson, he’s certain to be a sight. 

 

“I can’t help but worry, sir,” he replies, restless with a steward’s instinct, as black and frigid water begins to rush over the dry deck. Jopson’s stockinged feet continue their nervous tread, unaffected. Abovedecks, Crozier hears the spectral echo of shouts for life-boats, the shuffle of heavy ropes. 

 

“I understand,” he says. The phantom ice wall has passed through him where he sits, and the deck begins to crumple like a balsa-wood toy beneath the berth. Francis watches it go for the third or fourth time, unsurprised. The air is unchanged, but for the heavy stench of doom which had choked him from the first. 

 

“It’s a month yet to England. You must see that you pace your worrying accordingly.” 

 

_ Breadalbane’s _ demise is forthcoming, a pluck reverberating back to Francis now along the string of time, a thrumming death-knoll in her warm wooden bones. When he isn’t watching the splintering deck below his feet, he is dreaming, or perhaps hallucinating.

 

Francis sees himself, in his own berth, eyelids fluttering in the dim. A gleaming fish brushes its slick back against the keel of  _ Breadalbane _ and is spurned by the foreign texture. Francis feels it as if against his own side, cool and slippery. 

 

Fitzjames - James - is asleep on the  _ HMS Phoenix,  _ three miles away over open ocean. His borrowed nightshirt has iridescent shell buttons, and they show their small rainbow with the shallow motions of his chest. He sleeps, and he is healing. James will have a cane - Francis can see his white-gloved hand over the polished handle. It is enough omen to begin to ease the worries which have not ceased since Terror Camp, and have only worsened since. The visions come quickly now, a torrent unlocked - a glass of sherry, newly-minted buttons, James’ smile with a missing canine. His laughter will be rougher, and he will be slower to it. Tinged with clinking glass and the many-faceted glow of chandeliers, some of it. Else, a familiar room and a fire in the hearth, always a fire. He does not recognize it yet. 

 

Francis will learn the taste of his skin in that room - and at this his mind wants to balk but cannot, stuttering like a failing engine. His heart wants to want, and clings to the fire-warmth and the soft laugh he knows will rush over his mouth when they’re through, the smooth glove at his cheek. The string has been plucked somewhere in their future, a note struck and lingering on.  

 

At once he is within the weight and pain of his own body, conscious of breathing, of his heart beating. The joy of that vision is draining away like so much spilled wine. He is left with only a hopeful ember, stoking now the flame of survival in his breast which had sustained over so many mournful miles. 


End file.
